Fred West, the Gloucestershire builder charged with 12 murders, has been found dead in his prison cell.

Prison officers discovered the 53-year-old's body hanging from strips of clothing at Winson Green prison near Birmingham at lunch-time today.

Attempts to resuscitate him were made but a prison doctor pronounced him dead at 1330GMT today.

It is believed he committed suicide.

West, whose home became known as the House of Horrors after police found nine corpses concealed there, had been in custody for nearly a year.

He and his wife, Rosemary, who was charged with nine of the killings, were arrested in February last year by police investigating the disappearance of the couple's 16-year-old daughter, Heather, who was last seen alive in 1987.